Nonfiction Craft Lessons: Teaching Information Writing K-8

Rating:
Summary: Teaching nonfiction writing is EASY!
Review: I found this book to be a wonderful resource for mini-lessons relevant to nonfiction writing. As a third grade teacher, I am constantly on the lookout for books such as this one which offer many ideas and are grade level appropriate. This book is broken into sections for grade levels and is easy to use. The mini-lessons are fully outlined and simple to follow. I found the explaination ("teacher talk") of how to implement each lesson the most useful. I recommend this book to all teachers looking for simple and useful lessons to encourage the best nonfiction writing from their students!

Rating:
Summary: model mini-lessons for the writing workshop
Review: I'm a relatively new teacher, and have switched grade levels every year. Teaching writing has been one of the biggest challenges for me. I believe in a writing workshop model, and use a lot of 6 Traits ideas. I knew that both relied on the idea of the writing "mini-lesson" but I really didn't know what those should look like or what kinds of topics they should cover. This book has been a godsend. I disagree with those who say that this book is too rigid. Yes, each lesson identifies particular literature resources which can be used. If you have that book, that's awesome. If not, just adapt the lesson for use with a different book that illustrates the same concept. The point is, these are concise 15 minute mini-lessons that really help your students recognize writing craft, and give them accessible ideas which they can use to improve their own writing.

And, incidentally, if you're building up your classroom library, your school library, or your bookroom, the literature selections that ARE mentioned in this book are uniformly fabulous. I carry a copy of the list of books used in these lessons each time I go to a used book store.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Way to Think about Nonfiction Writing in Classrooms
Review: This book is a wonderful tool for writing teachers. Portalupi and Fletcher are very thoughtful in the way that the book is organized so that teachers can share with students lessons dealing with the craft of nonfiction. Since so many writing books deal primarily with narrative writing, this is one of the first I've seen to deal specifically with nonfiction and its craft. This book will change nonfiction writing in all K-8 classrooms. It seems to be a great book for teachers who are comfortable with Writing Workshop as well as those who are new to writing process.